


Grant

by ArtisticRainey



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9410753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtisticRainey/pseuds/ArtisticRainey
Summary: Grandma Tracy has a lot of photographs on her dresser. But there’s only one photo on the bedside table.





	

Grandma Tracy has a lot of photographs on her dresser. With so many talented grandsons – not to mention a pretty talented son, too – there’s a lot to celebrate in the Tracy family.  
Everything from the grandest of graduations, book publications, successful missions, Olympic wins, all the way down to first baby’s first tooth. She’s got it all.

  
Those are on the dresser. But there’s only one photo on the bedside table.

  
Grandma looks at it every night before she clicks off the light. She talks to it most nights, too. There are three people in the image, glinting in the soft dark of the evening.

  
To the left is herself, still dark haired and with no glasses – the slightest pink of lipstick and a smile that stretched for miles. She had eyes for only one person on that day. That was something that didn’t change as the years stretched on.  
Right beside her is Grant. He’s redheaded, freckled and grinning, looking up at the youngster straddled on his shoulders. Jeff was less than two years old on that day. They were on vacation in Florida, Jeff’s first time away from Kansas. The tot was enamoured with everything he saw and everyone he met. But Grant? He didn’t care about the holiday. All he cared about was his son and his wife. All he cared about was the family.

  
So before she goes to sleep, Grandma blows Grant a kiss. Sometimes she presses her fingertips to the cool glass nestling in the frame.

  
Some nights, she has a little word with him, too.

  
“Well Grant,” she says, “there’s another day over and no one was hurt. Everyone’s accounted for. Except…”

  
Her voice catches, then. She can’t say it. She just can’t.

  
On those nights, she imagines the bed depressing a little. She imagines a work-roughened hand settling on her shoulder. She imagines a freckled face. She reaches out to touch the stubbled-cheek.

  
And then his voice rings through.

  
“It’ll be alright, ‘Lizbeth.”

  
She closes her eyes. She inhales the scent. He always called her that, the nickname sliding out, smooth in his farm-boy accent.

  
“Our boy’ll be alright. He always is.”

  
When she opens her eyes, Grant’s gone. But Grandma doesn’t feel sad. She doesn’t weep. Instead, her heart is steeled again. She knows that she will wake up in the morning and keep going, because she has to – and because she’s not alone.  
Never.

  
She will keep going. She will keep smiling, working, fighting. Because it’s the right thing to do.

  
And because it’s what Grant would have done.


End file.
